Kyrgyzstan’s agreed accession to the Eurasian Economic Union came into force on 6 August, with the country becoming the fifth full member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and joining existing members Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Kyrgyzstan’s accession to the Eurasian Economic Union was signed on 8 May in Moscow at the session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council. The protocol regarding the terms and transitional provisions for its accession was also signed.

Kyrgyz Prime Minister Temir Sariyev has said that he expects the republic to gain a number of advantages in terms of economic development, particularly the free movement of capital, goods, labour and resources.

MAY 21 2015 (SRI) – Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev on Thursday signed into law Kyrgyzstan’s asseccion into the Kremlin-led Eurasian Economic Union. Mr Atambayev said that joining the trade and economic group was in Krygyzstan’s national interests.

-Silk Road Intelligencer (SRI) is the free newswire service of The Conway Bulletin, the leading independent weekly newspaper for Central Asia and the South Caucasus. The SRI reports on Central Asia. For more information on SRI go to www.silkroadintelligencer.com. For information on how to subscribe to The Conway Bulletin, go to www.theconwaybulletin.com

The Lower Chamber of Kazakhstan ratified an agreement on the provision of free military-technical assistance to Kyrgyzstan on September 28. Tengrinews.kz reports.

As the Deputy Minister of Defence of Kazakhstan Talgat Zhanzhumenov explained the assistance is to transfer to the Army of Kyrgyzstan armored personnel carriers, cars and mortars. He noted that additional funding is not needed because the technology as the transferred is in Kazakh Army “in excessive quantities.”

The deputy minister said that the agreement reached in order to strengthen security in Central Asia; in addition, the document will contribute to the development of the Armed Forces of Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan in its turn undertakes not to transfer received from the Kazakhstan side property or the right to use it to the third party.

According to Talgat Zhanzhumenov, cash equivalent of the military-technical assistance to Kyrgyzstan is about $ 3 million. According to the MP Dmitrienko, similar aid of Russia to Kyrgyzstan totaled 362 million rubles (about $ 12 million).

Kyrgyzstan has exported electric power to Kazakhstan for $8.4 million, the press service of Electrical Stations OJSC reports.

According to them, $6.06 million have been used for repayment of old debts to KEGOC JSC. In terms of kilowatt-hours, the total supply of electric power to the neighboring republic has amounted to 256.4 million kWh, out of which 178.4 million have been used for repayment of debt.

As noted, electric power suppliers were defined through a tender. According to its results, contracts were signed with Temirzholenergo LLP, Aktiv-Energotrade LLP, GES-Energo Almaty LLP, Kum Tau LLP, KEGOC JSC, Ontustik Zharyk LLP and Energopotok LLP.

All funds from electric power export are coming to a special-purpose account of Electrical Stations OJSC, the enterprise underlines.

The Company explained that opening of a separate special-purpose account will contribute to transparency of management of financial resources, received from electric power export. Also this measure will help ensure proper use of received funds for purchase of basic energy carriers for continuous electric and heat supply of domestic consumers in the autumn and winter period. The possibilities of using the funds of the special-purpose account are specified in the regulation “On basic requirements for using special-purpose accounts”, which was worked out by the Ministry of Energy of Kyrgyzstan. It prohibits spending this money only for purchase of fuel for the thermal power plants of Bishkek and Osh.

SOURCE: News Bulletin of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, No 23 August 10, 2010

The 56 OSCE participating States agreed the deployment of police advisors to Kyrgyzstan in a decision taken by the Permanent Council in Vienna on July 23. According to the decision, the Police Advisory Group will assist Kyrgyzstan in reducing inter-ethnic tensions and strengthening the capacities of the territorial units of the Ministry of the Interior of the Kyrgyz Republic. The initial deployment of the Police Advisory Group will be for four months from the start of the operation, and the mission could be extended with the agreement of Kyrgyzstan and the Permanent Council.

The agreement with Kyrgyzstan on the Police Advisory Group envisages sending an initial 52 international police officers to monitor and advise counterparts in the Kyrgyz police force, with a focus on southern Kyrgyzstan. They will be unarmed and have no executive police powers. All 56 OSCE participating States may nominate candidates for the Police Advisory Group.

The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State and Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev, commended the decision.

“From the onset Kazakhstan has been advocating for the OSCE’s effective participation in the settlement of the situation in Kyrgyzstan, within the existing mandate of the Organization. In view of this, we supported from the start the request of Kyrgyzstan’s authorities to deploy a Police Advisory Group. I sincerely welcome the fact that all 56 participating States of the OSCE have demonstrated their wisdom and achieved consensus about the deployment of OSCE police advisers in Kyrgyzstan, which was formalized today by the decision of the representatives of our countries in Vienna,” Saudabayev said.

“The presence of the Police Advisory Group in the regions that were the site of violent clashes will facilitate strengthening trust, stability and order in the country. As President Nursultan Nazarbayev emphasized during the informal ministerial meeting of OSCE foreign ministers in Almaty, Kazakhstan stands ready to continue supporting the brotherly people of Kyrgyzstan both as the OSCE Chairmanship and on a bilateral level.”

Following the informal meeting of OSCE Foreign Ministers near Almaty on 17 July, it was announced that the OSCE participating States had reached consensus on deployment of the OSCE Police Advisory Group to Kyrgyzstan.

The Permanent Council’s decision on Thursday formalised this agreement, and now the process of recruiting is being launched to have the most experienced and best suiting candidates deployed to Kyrgyzstan as soon as possible.

“Kazakhstan’s OSCE Chairmanship welcomes the decision of the participating States to deploy without delay a Police Advisory Group and thus enhance the OSCE’s continuing work with Kyrgyzstan to resolve the current crisis, prevent the spillover of tensions in the region and promote post conflict rehabilitation,” said the Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council, Ambassador of Kazakhstan Kairat Abdrakhmanov.

“The police advisors will play an important role in reassuring the people of Kyrgyzstan following the tragic events of recent months, and will further strengthen the capacities of the police and help in restoring public trust,” he added.

In a July 23 statement on its website, Kyrgyzstan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also welcomed the police mission saying its believes “the presence of the international police force in the south of the country will help prevent various destructive forces from provoking new upheavals and destabilization of the situation.” It also said it was “convinced that the deployment of the OSCE police task force will become a very useful and effective stimulus for modernizing the law enforcement apparatus in Kyrgyzstan.”

In the meantime, Kazakhstan launched a new phase of humanitarian and economic assistance to Kyrgyzstan on a bilateral basis. According to two government decrees signed by Prime Minister Karim Massimov on July 20, and as earlier announced by President Nazarbayev at the informal OSCE ministerial in Almaty on July 17, Kazakhstan starts delivering US$ 11.6 million worth aid to Kyrgyzstan. The ministries of emergency and transport have been tasked to secure timely shipping of coal for Bishkek thermal power station, construction materials for reconstructing damaged houses in Osh and Jalal-Abad, 3,000 tons of rice, 190 tons of buckwheat, and 60 tons of detergents.

In addition to that, Kazakhstan is working to help Kyrgyzstan elaborate a strategy of stabilising socio-economic situation in the country and coordinate international donors’ contribution toward the same goal. The joint intergovernmental commission led by Kazakhstan’s First Deputy Prime Minister Umirzak Shukeev and his Kyrgyz counterpart Amangeldi Muraliyev is already defining the best ways to use the international assistance most efficiently to raise US$ 1 billion, which was their assessment of the damage to be repaired following the recent turmoil in April, May and June 2010. Kazakhstan has already proposed to involve the Eurasian Economic Community’s special “anti-crisis” fund to help Kyrgyzstan stabilise its national budget, with operative management of the World Bank, to prepare properly for the looming cold season. The possibility of financial assistance from the Eurasian Development Bank, as well Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and its member states.

SOURCE: Kazakhstan News Bulletin No 21, released by the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United States of America

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg on Saturday called for the urgent dispatch of a police mission to Kyrgyzstan following ethnic clashes, as OSCE ministers met in Kazakhstan.

An international police mission “will help restore order, especially on the eve of elections, and will promote a swift reconciliation between the two sides in southern Kyrgyzstan,” Steinberg said in comments translated into Russian.
Top diplomats from the 56 states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) held a second day of bilateral meetings outside the Kazakh city of Almaty on Saturday.

The meeting comes just over a month after neighbouring Kyrgyzstan was shattered by the worst ethnic violence in Central Asia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“We consider that Kazakhstan, as the acting chairman of the OSCE, needs to send police officers as quickly as possible to this region,” Steinberg said at a news conference.

Kazakh Foreign Minister Kanat Saudabayev said Saturday that a decision would be taken on sending a police mission “in the nearest future.”
Officials have said that up to 2,000 people may have been killed in the clashes between majority Kyrgyz and minority Uzbeks in the southern Kyrgzystan regions of Osh and Jalalbad and the situation remains tense.

Kyrgyzstan’s interim government plans to hold parliamentary elections in October in an effort to boost its legitimacy.

On Friday, Herbert Salber, the head of the OSCE’s conflict prevention centre, said an agreement had been reached with Kyrgyzstan to send an international police mission.

He told reporters initially 52 police officers would be sent from OSCE states for an initial period of four months, although the force could be increased to 102 if necessary.

The task of the mission would be “assisting and also monitoring the Kyrgyz police,” Salber said. “They will accompany them in their work to strengthen confidence between the police and the population.”

SOURCE: Release of the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United States of America, No 20 July 19, 2010

OSCE Press Release
ASTANA, 28 June 2010 – The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Kazakhstan’s Secretary of State and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kanat Saudabayev, welcomed today the successful conduct of yesterday’s referendum in Kyrgyzstan, and called on OSCE participating States and international bodies to develop a plan of large-scale assistance to the country.
“The referendum is a decisive step towards political stability and the restoration of constitutional order and political legitimacy,” he said.

“The OSCE Chairmanship supports the preliminary assessment of the referendum by the mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. But holding the referendum is only the beginning of a hard path towards restoring the rule of law and furthering the democratic, social and economic development of Kyrgyzstan.”

Saudabayev added: “The OSCE is keenly interested in seeing the situation in Kyrgyzstan return to a constructive framework, and calls on all the participating States and international bodies to develop a plan of large-scale assistance for the country. We believe timely, effective and co-ordinated actions by the international community will become an important factor in stabilizing the political situation, maintaining regional security and co-operation, ensuring sustainable economic development and fully protecting democratic foundations in Kyrgyzstan.”

Today Saudabayev spoke on the telephone with Roza Otunbayeva, Kyrgyzstan’s President for the interim period, discussing the next steps to be taken to solidify the progress towards political stability and economic development of the country.

Kazakhstan’s OSCE Chairmanship was represented in Bishkek during the referendum by Ambassador and Chairperson of the OSCE Permanent Council Kairat Abdrakhmanov. During his visit he met Otunbayeva, Acting Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbayev and the Deputy Head of the Provisional Government, Omurbek Tekebayev, as well as representatives of civil society, the diplomatic community and international organizations.

SOURCE: Kazakhstan News Bulletin No 18, released by the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United States of America

New York Times, by Kanat Saudabayev, July 4, 2010
ASTANA, KAZAKHSTAN — The international community faces an acute test of its political will in Kyrgyzstan.
This small Central Asian country with a population of 5.3 million people is now in a deep political, economic and social crisis. As the tragic events of last month have shown, relations between the majority Kyrgyz population and some of the country’s minorities have started to fracture in the south leaving the interim government struggling to regain control and maintain a functioning state.
Some people may ask: Why does the situation in Kyrgyzstan matter? For many of them it is probably, as Neville Chamberlain said famously of Czechoslovakia, a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing. In fact, Kyrgyzstan is one of the main conduits for opium and heroin smuggling from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe.
If lawlessness and loss of authority are allowed to take root in Kyrgyzstan there is a danger that the country may be subject to infiltration by extremist groups, including terrorists.
The consequences of a complete breakdown of Kyrgyzstan could be very serious for Central Asia and the region beyond. The prospect of further violence, refugee flows to neighboring countries and a complete loss of control throughout the nation should be sufficient to galvanize world leaders to address the problems.
Kazakhstan, which holds the chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (O.S.C.E.), is a neighbor of Kyrgyzstan and the largest investor in the country. Kazakhstan feels a special responsibility to find a formula for deploying the resources of the international community to set Kyrgyzstan back on its feet.
In April, when the turbulence was at its height, Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, together with President Dmitri A. Medvedev and President Barack Obama contributed decisively to averting a civil war in Kyrgyzstan.
As chairman in office of the O.S.C.E., I have begun urgent consultations with the leadership of the United Nations and the European Union as well as with heads of foreign offices of regional players, including Russia, United States, China and Turkey, to coordinate our joint efforts on stabilizing Kyrgyzstan.
Under Kazakhstan’s chairmanship, the O.S.C.E. deployed Zhanybek Karibzhanov as a special representative to Bishkek. Mr. Karibazhanov, deputy speaker of Kazakhstan’s lower house of Parliament and chairman of the Kazakh-Kyrgyz interparliamentary group, together with envoys from the U.N. and the E.U., played an influential role in facilitating dialogue and defusing tensions.
While I believe that our efforts contained the crisis in April, the violence that erupted in mid-June is a chilling reminder of the fragility of the country and the limits of what the international community is currently able to achieve in Kyrgyzstan.
Let us be clear: Kyrgyzstan’s root problems are social and economic, not political or ethnic. Since independence in 1991 successive governments in Bishkek have been unable to ensure adequate economic development in Kyrgyzstan leaving it with G.D.P. levels up to five times below that of its immediate neighbors. This has resulted in the sense of hopelessness and despair that is creating political divisions and driving the breakdown in relations between ethnic groups, most of which have a long history of living together peacefully.
That is why Kazakhstan has provided and continues to provide tangible humanitarian assistance to its close neighbor, sending fuel, seeds and foodstuffs. And that is why Mr. Nazarbayev has proposed to develop, together with Kyrgyzstan, an international plan of assistance for the country and a strategic program for its economic development.
Uzbekistan deserves great credit for opening its borders and offering sanctuary to tens of thousands of Uzbek refugees. Although most of them have now returned to Kyrgyzstan, the situation in the south of the country remains volatile and there are concerns that the splintering of Kyrgyzstan’s ruling class and society could lead to disturbances in the north as well.
The O.S.C.E. has invested significant resources since 2003 to reform Kyrgyzstan’s law enforcement bodies and played a major role as a mediator in stabilizing the political crisis of 2005 when President Askar Akayev was forced out of office amid violent scenes in several parts of the country.
Kazakhstan has welcomed the success of the Kyrgyz referendum on June 27 as an important step toward returning a legal framework and peaceful development to the country. We urge all political forces in Kyrgyzstan to unite their efforts in reviving the economy and solving the most acute social problems. Kazakhstan stands ready to share its experience of economic and political reforms to help our brotherly nation.
It is vital now that the international community find the resolve to support the Kyrgyz government’s capacity to maintain public order and advance national reconciliation.
The O.S.C.E. is ready to make its contribution to accomplishing this mission. With this in mind, we seek the strengthening of the O.S.C.E. center in Bishkek and its operations throughout Kyrgyzstan.
To help Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan as chairman of the O.S.C.E. is working hard to employ the organization’s potential to the fullest extent possible. It is important that the political will of its 56 member states now be mobilized to offer Kyrgyzstan the assistance that it so urgently needs.
Kanat Saudabayev is the foreign minister of Kazakhstan and chairman in office of the O.S.C.E.

SOURCE: Kazakhstan News Bulletin No 18, released by the Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United States of America

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